remember when I knew

CHEN AZALEA

CHEN AZALEA felt Jai lean in to whisper "I think Sasha's next." from his seat. He didn't come so close, of course, his breath barely reaching the skin of her neck.

Azalea nodded as she looked at the children singing again. She recognised Yesterday quite easily. She thought it was alright, but her attention was mostly taken by the blonde pianist in the back, darn she was good.

When that one was over, the children and the girl left under the applause –of parents, mostly–, and Sasha came. She was wearing black trousers and a white top, holding her cello with her. She sat on the chair in the dark room and she closed her eyes as she played.

The sound she made was not from earth, but where else? It wasn't heavenly: it was even sweeter than that. Azalea was shocked. She knew Sasha was supposed to be good at it but that good?

She glanced at Jai. He was smiling with pride, his eyes locked on her sister as she played. She wanted to tell him that she was amazingly good at it but she didn't dare talk over the music. Instead, she closed her own eyes and listened in silence.

When it was over, Sasha got up and left as people applauded.She couldn't restrain the wide grin on her face as Jai clapped his hands together energetically.

"It was Bach's air for cello in G major BWV1007," he then told her, only in a whisper, in fear of disturbing the people around them.

"It was beautiful," she breathed out in lack of other words.

He nodded, grinning. "She's an incredible player, isn't she?"

"She is."

Then, a kid started singing We will rock you. It was a ten years old girl. She had jet black hair, green eyes and a smirk plastered on her face. Let's just say, Azalea would never see her ears again. She saw her whole life pass in front of her as the little girl did a noise that couldn't be classified as singing at all.

"Save my soul," Jai whined as he hid his face in her lap, his hands covering his ears.

Azalea rolled her eyes, whispering "Drama queen" as his face hid higher, getting under her shirt.

Azalea looked around her to see if she could find the girl's parents somewhere. She guessed that the elegant, furious woman in the front must be her mother: they looked like twins, almost, if one wasn't much older. Next to her, a guy older than the girl with the same dark hair, but gray eyes was snickering as he looked at his probably little sister.

Soon enough, one of the adults helping the kids made the cat singing stop. Azalea swore she saw everyone in the room sigh in delight of the silence. She felt something on her stomach move and a hot breath on her skin.

"Get out of there, idiot," she snapped as she hit him slightly in the arm.

He smiled sheepishly, trying to get his now messy hair look a little bit less like he just woke up.

After that, whatever the song was, everything felt like the Beatles heaven-like of music. Really, anything was great after hearing the black haired girl's singing.

"I still can't feel my ears," Jai whispered in a whiny voice.

Azalea looked at him in amusement. "Because you usually feel your ears?"

He nodded seriously. "Of course I do."

Azalea rolled her eyes, a smile stretching on her lips. She almost didn't feel the night come to an end. It was just song after song after song and soon enough, she was walking with Tina, Jai and Sasha.

"You were incredible, darling," Tina smiled at her daughter.

Sasha shrugged. "I am not sure. I played better before. But I am happy with what I did. It is funny. I feel like it is always better when I am alone..."

"You should be glad with your performance," Jai assured. "It was marvellous."

Azalea heard some screaming from the other side of the street and looked to see the girl who sang horribly, her mother and her brother walk there. "I cannot believe you Lucy, this is the last time I see you do something like that, do you hear me?" The woman snapped at her possibly daughter.

"Geez, mother. Calm your tits, and get the thing that crawled up your ass and died away," the apparently called Lucy replied, not looking at all worried by her mother.

Mother who looked ready to bury her alive. "Every single time," she repeated. "What did I possibly do to have you behave in such a way?"

"Nothing," the guy intervened. "You did nothing at all and that's the problem."

"I want you both to-"

Their voices were now too far away for them to hear and Azalea shared a look with Jai. He frowned and shrugged.

"That was weird," Tina commented. "But damn did that girl destroy my ears."

"She always uses weird words," Sasha added. "Like 'geez' and she calls everyone her brother. I do not really understand that. She cannot be related to everyone, can she?"

"People often say 'bro' or 'sis' to their friends now," Azalea explained.

"Oh, that is weird."

"You were with Heather this afternoon, right?" Tina suddenly asked her.

"I was. We drew. She made me this." Sasha took from her pocket a small piece of paper. She showed it to her mother and brother.

Jai passed it to Azalea and she looked at it too. It was a drawing of a grinning girl in a manda-like style. Over it was written 'Sasha's smile :) <3' in a blue, neat handwriting.

When they'd looked at it, Sasha put it back in her pocket. "She said it would give me luck if I kept it with me," she explained. "She also said that if I lost it, I could also smile instead. And that my smile was beautiful."

Jai smiles warmly at his sister, lifting her in his arms. "Because it is, Sha."

Azalea was about to add something when her phone rang. She frowned and looked at it.Cherry. She put her phone back to where it was.

"Shouldn't you answer that?" Jai asked her with a worried expression.

She shook her head. "It was just my mother."

Tina put a hand on her shoulder. "She'll worry for you if you don't answer."

Azalea smiled the best she could. "Really, she won't."

Jai put his sister back on the ground and his hand reached for hers. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

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A/N: Question: What's the weirdest title to a good book you read?

So, I read the french translation and it was titled "Le jour où mon père est devenu premier ministre (et ce qui s'ensuivit)" and that means "The day my father became prime minister (and what followed)".

But I looked and it's originally called "Statsminister Fahr & sønn –Barna som forsvant. And if I'm able to understand it well from my Swedish, that means  "Prime Minister father and son –The children who disappeared".

Now that I think of it, I could've read it in the original language from starters, because it's so alike Swedish...

Whatever. There's another chapter following this one (except if you finished reading this one before I posted the next one but I don't think that'll happen).